
30
THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL
clause of verse 24] he [Rome] shall return, and come toward
the south ; but it shall not be as the former, or as the latter."
The triumphs of former days were not repeated. The removal
of the seat of government from Rome to Constantinople, under
Constantine the Great, in A. D. 33o, is recognized as the signal
of the downfall of the Roman Empire.
4.
Verse 31.—"And forces shall stand on his part, and they
shall profane the sanctuary, even the fortress, and shall take
away the continual ["burnt-offering" supplied], and they shall
set up the abomination that maketh desolate."—American Re-
vision. The papacy was fully established in the year 538, the
beginning of the 5260 years of papal supremacy.
5.
Verse 34.—"Now when they [the people of God] shall
fall, they shall be holpen with a little help [fulfilled by the
influence of the great Reformation]."
6.
Verse 36.—Evidently a new power is here introduced,
and it must be an atheistical power, in the fullest sense of that
term, inasmuch as it was to regard neither the God of heaven
nor any God ; and this development is to be met about the
year 1798, which period is referred to as the time of the end.
"France is the only nation in the world concerning which
the authentic record survives that as a nation she lifted her
hand in open rebellion against the Author of the universe.
France stands apart in the world's history as the single state
which, by the decree of her legislative assembly, pronounced
that there was no God, and of which the entire population of
the • capital, and a vast majority elsewhere, women as well as
men, danced and sang with joy in accepting the announcement."
—Quotation from Blackwood's Magazine.
"The world for the first time heard an assembly of men,
born and educated in civilization, and assuming the right to
govern one of the finest of the European nations, uplift their
united voice to deny the most solemn truth which man's soul
receives, and renounce unanimously the belief and worship of
Deity."—Scott's Napoleon.
"At this juncture all religious worship was prohibited,
except that of liberty and the country. The gold and silver
plate of the churches was seized upon and desecrated. The
churches were closed. The bells were broken and cast into
cannon. The Bible was publicly burned. The sacramental ves-
sels were paraded through the streets on an ass, in token of
contempt. The weekly rest was abolished, and death was de-
clared, in conspicuous letters posted over their burial places,
to be an eternal sleep."—U.
Smith, in Thoughts on Daniel.
Nine-tenths of the women :of India never heard of a Saviour